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Tag Archives: Moydrum

On a hill to the north of Moydrum Castle, County Westmeath and now surrounded by woodland, the rusticated exterior of a church once serving the Handcock family. The present building dates from the 1840s when built by Richard Handcock, third Viscount Castlemaine to provide relief work during the Great Famine. It replaced an earlier church on or near the same site also constructed by the family in 1740, and was in turn further altered in the 1860s by the addition of a gabled porch on the west end.

The ruins of Moydrum Castle, County Westmeath. The former seat of the Handcock family, an earlier house here was described in Neale’s Views of Seats (1823) as being ‘nothing more than an ordinary farmhouse, contracted in its dimensions, mean in its external form and inconvenient in its interior arrangements.’ By that date work was already underway to transform and enlarge the building into a neo-Jacobean castle designed by Richard Morrison suitable as a residence for William Handcock, raised to the peerage first as Baron and then Viscount Castlemaine. The completed work was described by Samuel Lewis in 1837 as ‘a solid castellated mansion with square turrets at each angle beautifully situated on the edge of a small lake and surrounded by an extensive and richly wooded demesne.’ This is what remains of the east-facing façade, the entrance resembling an immense gate-tower. Moydrum was burnt by members of the IRA in July 1921 and has remained derelict ever since: in 1984 a photograph of Moydrum by Anton Corbijn was used on the cover of U2’s album The Unforgettable Fire showing members of the band standing in front of the ruins.